Gaza Herald — As the ruins of Gaza testify to months of relentless Israeli airstrikes, new revelations expose the UK’s indirect complicity in the war machine that has devastated Palestinian life. Despite publicly pausing some arms sales to Israel, Britain continues to profit from the bloodshed, as financial trails link UK-based arms firms to bombs that have massacred civilians, including thousands of children.
A bombshell investigation by The Guardian, in collaboration with investigative outlets Disclose and Follow the Money, uncovers how revenue from the deadly GBU-39 bomb manufactured in the United States flows through the United Kingdom via the British branch of MBDA, Europe’s largest missile producer. While MBDA’s American subsidiary operates a plant in Alabama that makes the precision-guided wings for the GBU-39, the profits travel through MBDA UK in Hertfordshire before being passed to the parent company in France.
These bombs, manufactured by Boeing and fitted with MBDA-made wings that allow them to glide to targets with deadly accuracy, have been used extensively in Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza. Despite claims of restraint, the findings confirm that UK-based companies remain financially entangled in this cycle of destruction.
The investigation verified 24 documented airstrikes using the GBU-39, each resulting in civilian deaths, including children. Many of the attacks occurred at night, striking makeshift shelters such as schools and refugee camps where displaced families had sought safety. The United Nations and Amnesty International are investigating several of these cases as suspected war crimes.
The revenues from these weapons are staggering. MBDA reportedly distributed £350 million in dividends last year to its three shareholders: BAE Systems (UK), Airbus (France), and Leonardo (Italy), all companies with deep ties to European defense ministries and political lobbies.
Death Toll Rises
What makes these revelations more damning is the contrast between public statements and behind-the-scenes profiteering. The UK government had previously stated it was reviewing and suspending certain arms export licenses to Israel amid growing global outrage. Yet, this financial link to mass civilian casualties shows that the machinery of war continues uninterrupted, simply repackaged through subsidiaries and multinational arms conglomerates.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 16,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The total death toll now exceeds 196,000 dead and wounded, with over 11,000 still missing, presumed buried under the rubble. These are not just numbers. As the ministry emphasized, these figures represent an obliterated generation, denied their right to life, education, and safety, turned into targets by foreign-funded precision bombs.
While Western capitals debate legal red lines and diplomatic language, their defense industries quietly profit from a war that has turned Gaza into a graveyard. The UK’s involvement, even at a financial level, casts a long shadow over its claims of upholding international law. This is more than a failure of oversight; it exposes a system that places profit from arms deals above the lives of Palestinian civilians. Silence is complicity, but profiting from this devastation is something far worse. The genocide in Gaza demands not just condemnation, but action to dismantle the financial structures that fuel and sustain it.
